Research

Women in the Workforce: China (Quick Take)

Apr 14, 2020

POPULATION

Men Outnumber Women in the World’s Most Populated Nation1

Women represent 48.7% of China’s population.2

  • China’s gender imbalance has contributed to slowed population and labor force growth, increased proportions of single men, and the trafficking of women.3
China’s Older-Adult Population Is on the Rise4

Between 2000 and 2050 China’s population of people over sixty-five years old is predicted to more than quadruple.5

  • In 2018, 11.9% of the population was over sixty-five years old.6
China’s Population Is Increasingly Urban

In 1978 just 17.9% of China’s population lived in an urban area compared to 59.6% in 2018.7

EDUCATION

The Gender Gap in Tertiary Education Is Closed

In 2018, the percentage of adults aged 25–34 with a tertiary education8 was the same for women as for men.9

China Is Investing Heavily to Expand Tertiary Education

China is investing financially to modernize the country’s educational system and the number of tertiary educational institutions has more than doubled in the past decade.10

  • Sixty-seven percent of 25-34-year-olds are expected to enroll in tertiary education for the first time.11
  • In 2019, 55.9% of women were enrolled in tertiary education compared with 45.9% of men.12
  • In 2018, 52.5% of all undergraduate students and 49.6% of all graduate students in 2018 were women.13

LABOR FORCE

China Has One of Asia-Pacific’s Highest Labor Force Participation Rates for Women14

However, women’s labor force participation has been declining since the 1990s from 73.2% in 1990 to 60.5% in 2019. In comparison, 75.3% of men participated in the labor force in 2019.15

  • Women made up 43.7% of the total labor force in 2019.16

China’s economic reforms resulted in a variety of setbacks for women, including:17

  • Diminished employment opportunities for women.
  • A widened gender wage gap.
  • A lack of childcare and eldercare options.
  • A resurgence of traditional stereotypes about women’s work.
Cultural Norms Disadvantage Working Women18

Women are still seen as primary caregivers and are expected to stop working to care for their families. Women in China spend three times that of men, or one-sixth of their lives, on unpaid household activities.19

In a recent survey, 85% of respondents said they saw that, for women they knew, juggling their jobs with their families was difficult. More than 85% believed that having children would negatively impact a woman’s career advancement.20

Gender stereotypes and discriminatory language is prevalent in job advertisements. Nineteen percent of postings for civil service jobs in 2018 listed a requirement or preference for male candidates.21

  • In job advertisements targeting women, many include requirements for women to be married with children and to possess specific physical attributes (e.g., height, weight) that are not related to job duties.22

In 2019 China enacted laws to expand workplace protections for women. These included prohibiting employers from asking women about their marital or family status and from requiring women to agree not to have children as an employment condition.23

  • A fine of $7,400 may be imposed on employers and recruiters whose job ads are gender discriminatory. However, it is unclear how well the law is enforced.24
  • Although China has laws against pregnancy discrimination, employers often defy labor laws leaving women little success in seeking legal redress.25

Regional job discrimination is common against those from Henan and the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. Job applicants from these regions are screened out because China’s anti-discrimination law does not include regional discrimination.26

LEADERSHIP

Despite High Labor Force Participation, There Are Few Women in Leadership Roles27

In 2019, women made up only 9.7% of board directors from listed companies in China.28

In a survey of 401 enterprises, 20.1% reported having had a woman CEO in 2018.29

  • In the same year, enterprises promoted gender diversity in the following areas:30
    • Recruitment, retention and promotion: 75.3%.
    • Skills and executive training: 62.3%.
    • Remuneration: 59.1%.

Nearly one-quarter (24.9%) of all positions in China’s single-house parliament are held by women, placing it seventy-fifth out of 188 countries.31

PAY GAP

A Gender Pay Gap in China’s Labor Force Narrows But Persists32

Women earn just 84% of what men make for similar work as of 2019. That number has narrowed from 77% in 2016.33

Women earn on average 36% less than men for doing similar work, ranking in the bottom third of the Global Gender Gap Index (ranked 106 out of 153 countries).34

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Catalyst, Quick Take: Women in the Workforce – Global.

Catalyst, Quick Take: Women in the Workforce – Japan.

Human Rights Watch, “China—Events of 2019,” World Report 2019 (2020).

International Labour Organization, “China Promotes Gender Equality at Work,”  September 23, 2019.

“2017 Women, Work and Happiness: Impact of Women in the Workplace in a Digital Age Report,” Lean In China and Deloitte press release, March 7, 2018.

Jonathan Woetzel, Anu Madgavkar, Kevin Sneader, Oliver Tonby, Diaan-Yi Lin, John Lydon, Sha Sha, Mekala Krishnan, Kweilin Ellingrud, and Michael Gubieski, The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in Asia Pacific (McKinsey & Company, April 2018).

 

How to cite this product: Catalyst, Quick Take: Women in the Workforce – China (April 14, 2020).

  1. CIA, “China: People and Society,” The World Factbook (April 1, 2020).
  2. The World Bank, “Population, Female (% of Total Population), China, 2018,” The World Bank Databank (2019).
  3. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Towards a Normal Sex Ratio at Birth in China (UNFPA China Policy Brief Series, January 2018).
  4. Liyan Qi and Fanfan Wang, “A Limit to China’s Economic Rise: Not Enough Babies,” The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2018.
  5. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, “Population by Age and Sex (Thousands),” World Population Prospects 2019 (2019).
  6. UNFPA, National Bureau of Statistics, Department of Social, Science, Technology and Cultural Statistics, Women and Men in China: Facts and Figures 2019 (2020): p. 3, 16.
  7. UNFPA, National Bureau of Statistics, Department of Social, Science, Technology and Cultural Statistics, Women and Men in China: Facts and Figures 2019 (2020): p. 7.
  8. Tertiary education describes “all post-secondary education, including both public and private universities, colleges, technical training institutes, and vocational schools.” The World Bank, “Higher Education,” The World Bank Topics (October 5, 2017).
  9. OECD, “Country Note: China,” Education at a Glance 2019 (2019).
  10. ChinaPower Project, “How Does Education in China Compare with Other Countries?” (April 3, 2020).
  11. OECD, “Country Note: China,” Education at a Glance 2019 (2019).
  12. World Economic Forum, “Data Explorer: China,” The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (2020).
  13. UNFPA, National Bureau of Statistics, Department of Social, Science, Technology and Cultural Statistics, Women and Men in China: Facts and Figures 2019 (2020): p. 77.
  14. Asian Development Bank, Gender Equality and the Labor Market: Women, Work, and Migration in the People’s Republic of China (2017): p. v.
  15. The World Bank, “Labor Force Participation Rate, Female (% of Female Population Ages 15+) (Modeled ILO Estimate), China, 1990 and 2019,” The World Bank Databank (2019); The World Bank, “Labor Force Participation Rate, Male (% of Male Population Ages 15+) (Modeled ILO Estimate), China, 2019,” The World Bank Databank (2019).
  16. The World Bank, “Labor Force, Female (% of Total Labor Force), China, 2019,” The World Bank Databank (2019).
  17. Rachel Connelly, Xiao-yuan Dong, Joyce Jacobsen, and Yaohui Zhao, “The Care Economy in Post-Reform China: Feminist Research on Unpaid and Paid Work and Well-Being,” Feminist Economics, vol. 24, no. 2 (2018): p. 1-30.
  18. Peter Vanham, “Women in China Contribute More to GDP than in the US. Viewing Them as ‘Leftover’ Is Problematic,” World Economic Forum, April 12, 2018.
  19. “Being a Woman in China Means Working a Sixth of Your Life Unpaid,” Bloomberg News, January 25, 2019.
  20. “85% People Say Work-life Balance Difficult for Working Mothers,” China Daily, July 14, 2019.
  21. Human Rights Watch, “Only Men Need Apply”: Gender Discrimination in Job Advertisements in China (2018): p. 2.
  22. Human Rights Watch, “Only Men Need Apply”: Gender Discrimination in Job Advertisements in China (2018): p. 28, 30.
  23. Fiona Webster and Stephanie Rosseau, “China Strengthens Gender Equality,” Mercer, March 15, 2019.
  24. Amy Qin, “Stop Asking Women About Childbearing Status, China Tells Employers,” The New York Times, February 21, 2019.
  25. Alexandra Stevenson and Elsie Chen, “In China, Working Mothers Say They Are Fired or Sidelined,” The New York Times, November 1, 2019.
  26. “Many Chinese Suffer Discrimination Based on Their Regional Origin; Regional Discrimination,” The Economist, April 11, 2019.
  27. Human Rights Watch, “Only Men Need Apply”: Gender Discrimination in Job Advertisements in China (2018): p. 9-10.
  28. World Economic Forum, “Data Explorer: China,” The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (2020).
  29. International Labour Organization, Women in Business and Management: The Business Case for Change: Country Snapshots (2019): p. 4.
  30. International Labour Organization, Women in Business and Management: The Business Case for Change: Country Snapshots (2019): p. 4.
  31. Inter-Parliamentary Union, “Percentage of Women in National Parliaments,” New Parline: The IPU’s Open Data Platform  (March 2020).
  32. Huang Chenkuang, “Report: Gender Pay Gap in China Narrows But Women Are Still Getting Short-Changed,” The Beijinger (March 9, 2019).
  33. Huang Chenkuang, “Report: Gender Pay Gap in China Narrows But Women Are Still Getting Short-Changed,” The Beijinger (March 9, 2019).
  34. World Economic Forum, “Data Explorer: China,” The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (2020).